FIXED GAZE ON SHIFTING SHAPES. 157 George Dallas, in Black Sheep, has a long, lonesome evening over a "bit of fire," his eyes fixed on the glowing embers; and the question occurs in his case, was he looking at faces in the fire—his parents' faces, the faces of friends whom he had treated as enemies, of enemies whom he had taken for friends? Were reproachful eyes looking at him from out the past; were threatening glances in the present flashed on him? On the night of Lady Glencora Palliser's meditated flight from husband and home, she sits, as pictured by Mr. Trollope, close over the fire, with her slippers on the fender, her elbows on her knees, and her face resting on her hands. "In this position she remained for an hour, with her eyes fixed on the altering shapes of the hot coals." During this hour her spirit is by no means defiant, and her thoughts of herself anything but triumphant. On a subsequent page we read, accordingly,-after the author has sufficiently analysed her thoughts, and indicated her deep searchings of heart,-that "lower and lower she crouched over the fire; and then, when the coals were no longer red, and the shapes altered themselves no more, she crept into bed." Here again is Mrs. Gaskell's Ruth, awaiting with a strange, sick, shrinking yearning, the crumbs of intelligence Mary may be able to give her about Mr. Donne: "Ruth's sense of hearing was quickened to miserable intensity as she stood before the chimney-piece, grasping it tight with both hands-gazing into the dying fire, 158 DEAD FACES IN THE FIRE. but seeing-not the dead grey embers, or the little sparks of vivid light that ran hither and thither among the wood ashes-but an old farm-house, and climbing winding road, and a little golden breezy common, with a rural inn on the hill-top, far, far away." Joanna Baillie's Night Scenes of Other Times forget not the witching hour of fire-gazing: "Oft as the cheerless fire declines, In it I sadly trace, As lone I sit, the half-form'd lines Of many a much-loved face." Surely there is no speculation in the eyes which they do glare withal, who never see faces in the firedead and gone faces too, in the living, but oftener perhaps in a dying, fire. And for the little time the faces retain a form amid the dissolving views of those cavernous depths, they seem so near and yet so far. H NIGHT STUDENTS. A CHAPTER OF INSTANCES. ORACE enforces his caution against idleness, and the ills it brings in its train, by recommending such habits of study, real study, as make the student, if real student, call for his book with a light before peep of day: Posces ante diem librum cum lumine, in order to occupy and pre-occupy the mind, studiis et rebus honestis. Si non, is the warning, bad will come of it. And Persius is complimenting the friend whose faded cheek hangs o'er the midnight page, in the line— “At te nocturnis juvat impallescere chartis." There are apologists for Nicodemus who submit that his coming to Jesus by night was in deference to certain Jewish traditions, which recommend a nocturnal study of the law. A veritably Christian poet sings and says that "Night is the time for toil; To plough the classic field, Its wealthy furrows yield; That poets sang or heroes wrought.” A stanza which has moved some of good James 160 NIGHT STUDY: A VEXED QUESTION. Montgomery's friendliest expositors to expostulate, "without any wish to make pedantic objections," but with a decided conviction that the stanza is inconsistent with natural truth and a just economy of life. Day is the time for toil, they protest,-night is more proper for repose; and, if spent in mental labour, in addition to other studies pursued during the day, must involve the penalty of substantial damages to health. Night study, or late evening study at least, has its strenuous apologists notwithstanding, who maintain, in opposition to the early risers, that fresher and less exhausted as a man's powers may be supposed to be in the morning, yet, as a rule, this advantage is counterbalanced by the diminution of restlessness and irritability, and the greater power of concentration, produced by the evening calmness. And it is contended, for instance, that albeit a man may possibly write novels with success before breakfast (Sir Walter Scott did), because it is necessary that his sensibility to outward impressions should be as lively and fresh as possible; and though he may of course do anything that comes under the name of business most effectively in the middle of the day; he can hardly be a metaphysician till past twelve at night,1 except on 1 The lion-like professor in Mr. Longfellow's romance, loves candle-light and the still darkness of the midnight hour. "For," said he, "if the morning hours are the wings of the day, I only APOLOGISTS FOR NIGHT-WORK. 161 peril of putting down all metaphysics as folly. This is alleged to be doubtless owing to the fact that metaphysics require sustained and undiverted attention-such attention as is impossible, so long as the meditator may be exposed to the cries of milkmen, or the grinding groans of barrel-organs; the dull steady sound of late carriages being considered, on the other hand, rather favourable than otherwise to profound reflection. One contemplative essayist on Early Rising comes to the conclusion, accordingly, that for almost all purposes, the evening hours have a distinct superiority over the morning for the civilized part of mankind, whose pursuits do not require daylight, and who know the use of gas and candlelight. Another backs Tom Moore as speaking truly when he said that the best of all ways to lengthen our days is to steal a few hours from the night; only we must steal for a good purpose, not for pleasure or dissipation, else we are losers instead of gainers by the theft. Moderate night-work, by the express testimony of experiment and experience, does no hurt to bodily or mental health, but rather the contrary. Mr. E. S. Dallas somewhere takes note fold them about me to sleep more sweetly; knowing that, at its other extremity, the day, like the fowls of the air, has an epicurean morsel-a parson's nose; and on this oily midnight my spirit revels and is glad." (Hyperion, book ii., ch. vii.) The professor's humour smells of the lamp, and the oil of it is a thought rancid. M |